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The Battle Mountain boys and girls ski teams have accumulated 15 state championships in program history. The girls won back-to-back titles in 2022 and 2023, and have either been champions or state runners-up every year since 2016.

Head coach Lisa Isom said the Nordic has carried the Alpine a few of those times and vice-versa in other instances. That won’t be the case in 2025.

For the first time, the Colorado High School ߣÏÈÉú League will hand out separate Nordic and Alpine state team trophies.

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“There’s years it would help us and years it would hurt us,” Isom said when asked about her reaction to the change. “It’s great for these smaller schools that only have Nordic or Alpine.”

On the Nordic side, Isom’s girls have a great shot at repeating their successes from last season, when they won the team title on the skate race and tied with Lake County for top honors on the classic day.

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“I’ve got some rock star girls coming up as seniors (and) we’ve got freshmen coming up that are strong,” said the second-year head coach, who was on board with Jeff Apps and Innes Isom as an assistant for two years prior to stepping into the lead role.

Before analyzing the returners, it’s worth mentioning who Battle Mountain lost. The Huskies graduated 12 seniors, including three-time state skimeister champion Lindsey Whitton and two-time skimeister state champion Theo Krueger.

“They were a really impactful group of kids,” Isom said of the class of 2024. “It’s hard to lose that kind of leadership.” 

Whitton also won an the individual classic title last year and was runner-up to Summit skier Ella Hagen in the skate race. Looking ahead, the Huskies will lean on veteran Bella Williams, who was eighth in the skate race at state last February.

“She digs deep and works hard,” Isom said of the senior. “You can see the grit and determination on her face when she’s skiing, so I’m super excited for her.”

Ruthie Demino — who led Whitton in the skimeister standings until the final slalom race — returns for her junior year as well. Once again, she’ll have stiff competition from a teammate in chasing her first skimeister crown — which ranks the best all-around Alpine and Nordic athlete from the entire season. This time, it will come courtesy of her younger sister, Eden, who is coming off a stellar cross-country running season that saw her place seventh overall in the 4A meet. The 1-2 punch will be complemented by Williams and Eliza Pyke, while Reese Davis and Carla Hahn should bring formidable fitness coming off their respective mountain bike campaigns earlier this fall.

On the boys side, Kai Skellion is the top returning skimeister in the state after placing fifth overall last year.

“He’s been working hard, he’s fit and he’s really chomping at the bit to jump into that skimeister role,” Isom said of the Eagle Valley High School transfer. 

Battle Mountain’s boys team is a bit smaller after graduating its three top-10 state finishers in Krueger, Miles McKenzie and John McAbee. But Isom is excited about the physical development and technical progress of returners like Boden Anderson, who finished 43rd at state in the skate race last year.

With both squads, the mission is the same: ‘kill them with kindness.’

“The thing with the Nordic team is just, we’re seriously out here to have a good time, stay fit, work on our mental health and be kind to people,” Isom said. “For as cheesy at that sounds, I think that’s kind of our overarching message.”

While the objective goal is to add a 16th — and maybe even 17th — state trophy to the display case in Edwards, titles aren’t the primary aim.

“We want to be good, of course we want to win, of course we want to be competitive, but we want to do it with our hearts in the right place,” Isom said. “If you can learn that as a teenager and take that out into the world, I don’t know if there’s anything else that matters.”